Genius Loci

Some time ago, we tried to figure out the situation in which the movie in Russia is located today. At the same time, we were not interested in one, but all aspects-and the state of rental of Russian and foreign cinema, and the level of audience interest in cinema today, and education in the field of cinema, and what we can be proud of, and for what is ashamed, and many other issues.

As normal amateurs who themselves can only build hypotheses without evidence, we decided to turn to specialists, their competent assessment of what is happening today in the Russian film distribution and the film industry as a whole. Our experts were film critic Anton Dolin , producer and film defector Anton Mazurov , producer Sergei Selvanov , TV presenter and director Alexander Gordon , director Pavel Lungin , editor -in -chief of the journal “SESIST” Lyubov Arcus , Kino Historian Evgeny Margolit , director Vladimir Khotinenko .

As you can see, these are people of various professions in the field of cinema, different ages, but they are all professionals in their business, and naturally, each of them talked about what he sees the main problems of the filmfer in Russia, about his “painful”.

We tried to summarize what was said by our experts

And to correlate it with your own hypotheses, to conduct, so to speak, a qualitative analysis of the information received and draw some conclusions.

Is being determined by consciousness?

Cinema is part of the culture, it does not live, does not develop, and is not perceived in isolation from the rest of the “cultural layer” and context and, probably, due to its mass, more than other arts are trying to correspond to the general cultural situation. The cultural layer, culture as a whole and in the widest (and even more so in a narrow) sense is created by people, but people live in the framework of a certain culture, being its products and pupils. So is being determined by consciousness, that is, culture determines the human consciousness, or does the consciousness of people form and shut up the cultural environment, culture as such?

Be that as it may,

Many of our experts, independently from each other, pessimisticly appreciated the current cultural situation with the concept of “systemic crisis”.

This is the dominance in the film distribution of a low -quality “popcorn” cinema that does not give food for the mind and eyes, but nevertheless makes good box office. These are the serious problems that domestic cinema is experiencing, since the Russian viewer does not want to watch domestic cinema, preferring Hollywood films. Many experts call a systemic phenomenon that does not correspond to the current needs of the cinema, vocational education, in many ways outdated, clumsy and low -mobility. Another aspect of the system is the viewer himself, his needs, needs and aspirations.

An optimistic view of existing problems (for the most part professionals we have interviewed - not his supporters) is clear and understandable - there are problems, but they are not global, temporary and you should not take them seriously.

Experts also mentioned that there is good in our cinema - an operator school, artists.

We see that the optimal in this case will be a certain “golden realistic middle”, in some way, reconciling optimists and pessimists and gives an answer to the question: what is primary, being or consciousness? Genesis determines consciousness, but consciousness on being affects and can change it. To change the situation, if not in the film distribution, then at least in the perception of cinema, in the formation of the right attitude to cinema in the thinking part of society-the one that is generally interesting-it is necessary to do something. It is necessary to work in parallel with both being and consciousness - this is the method of changing the environment and consciousness at the same time. Creating new gaps in the cultural environment, around which people will concentrate, who want some changes in the field of Russian rental and in their own perception and cinema consumption, we can hope to turn the situation-water sharpens the stone.

And where is the viewer?

The viewer is one of the basic components of cinema, the cinema is always shot specifically for the viewer, units create something “on the table” and for themselves, and according to the famous TV presenter and director Alexander Gordon , those who say so, liar or psychos.

One way or another, the authors of any cinema, when it is conceived, starred, is mounted, already have a cast in front of them “their” viewer.

The portrait of the viewer according to the descriptions of our “eyewitnesses”-experts is not homogeneous, he is mosaic, but nevertheless, there are several key points in his image.

Firstly, it is quite young, on average, its age does not exceed 20 years-this refers to the audience of cinema halls of the capital, and not some abstract people. It is good or bad is a difficult question, but the directors with whom we spoke ( V. Khotnko , A. Gordon , P. Lungin ) are seen in this rather, an audience, a drawback. They believe that the younger a person, the less he is ready, able and wants to perceive a serious movie, think about what he sees, work when watching a movie, and not chase 3 d -extensions and special effects, there is popcorn and generally relax.

But at the same time, the position of film critic Anton Dolina is closer and more pleasant for us, he claims that

Festival shows, in general, shows of not standard Hollywood “Ki-Fastfood”, but of the substantial and well-shot, high-quality cinema, have their own viewer.

As a rule, the halls are filled out at such shows, that is, the demand for, relatively speaking, there is a “copyright” movie. One fact is amazing: out of 2 million dollars collected by the rental throughout the world of the film "Melancholy" Lars von Trier, more than a million was collected in Russia. There are people, there are ... We agree that there are many people who want to watch a good movie, but there are practically no sites where they can go.

True, according to Anton Valley, the “Sinefilians”, cinema lovers as art, often suffer from cinematic autism, spending time alone with a computer, Internet and home. At the same time, it seems to us that the absence of a sufficient number of sites showing a variety of and interesting cinema is also the reason for the reclusion of fans of cinema.

There is an alternative!

All our experts agreed that

The number of cinema halls showing the cinema not only from the "mainstream", but also "another movie" is clearly not enough,

At least in Moscow, and there is no need to talk about Russia as a whole. Only about two thousand cinemas operate on the entire immense homeland, and, for example, in France there are six thousand - the difference is obvious.

Another question that excites the experts that we interviewed is, in fact, not only the quantity, but also the quality of most metropolitan cinema halls. Many of them are located in large shopping centers, megamolls, roughly speaking, "between cowards and hours." You can’t still forget that cinema is an art, it requires a certain mood, atmosphere.

The location of the cinema halls in Megamolls makes not only forget about it, but fundamentally replaces the concepts - the pleasure of art falls into one semantic series with shopping.

The process of watching the film involuntarily begins to be perceived as another type of consumption of goods - mass and not very, it depends only on the class of the shopping center in which the cinema is located.

Alternative halls in shopping centers of the film screenings are a rather rare phenomenon, including in Moscow. It seems to us that the format of a small “cinema-campus” is ideal for creating the cultural environment that we talked about at the very beginning, about the rallying of people who are interested in cinema, they want to know more about it, talk about it.

The main thing is the charge, the presence of its “genius of place”, which would create the right, chamber mood, in some ways home, but at the same time, which assumes not only one viewer and screen for the perception and “residence” of the movie. The site for the cinema is a more correct name. Cinema is not only watching itself, it is also his discussion, accommodation, disputes, finally. These are public lectures of professionals from various fields of cinema about skill, secrets of cinema, the intricacies of creating cinema and the intricacies of its perception.

Probably, the most correct definition of our method of changing the situation with the movie locations in Moscow is the creation of a special filming, which will be attractive to those who love the cinema.

It seems to us that we have found just such a site, today it is in the stage of recent preparations for the beginning of film screenings. This is a filmmap to them. McGaffin. It will be located in “Pirogues on Sretenka” (Sretenka Street, 26/1 house).

Schedule of the film bookcase named after McGaffin can be seen here .

See also: in Pir.g.Ah on Sretenka, the film school named after McGaffin Maria Morozova McGaffin is opened